


The Disgraced Knight and the Old Maiden

by orphan_account



Category: RWBY
Genre: Body Horror, First Spoilers, Foolish Miscommuncation, M/M, Pining, Self-Denial, Shapeshifting, True Love's Kiss, Volume 7 Knowledge Assumed, Yearning, fairytale inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-01-29 06:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21405970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Qrow started reading, “'His armour was dirty and didn’t shine. He hadn’t polished it in years. But still, she rested her hand on his helmet'—oh god—”It was James’ favourite part.“—'and she kissed his temple through metal, left with dirt on her lips. “Come back,” she pleaded, but he did not reply.'”Qrow closed the book gently and set it down back on the seat.Qrow was cursed. James didn't see it that way.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/James Ironwood
Comments: 25
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes inspiration from Howl's Moving Castle, and my own fervent need to see the trope of where two people REALLY want to kiss and oh no? I suppose they must kiss! How terrible... 
> 
> Thank you all for the warm welcome into the IronQrow fandom! Please enjoy this offering!

Raven and James together were an odd couple, but their mutual interest of dragging Qrow to safety, out of sight and with haste, certainly justified the situation.

It was a grim sight.

James was not sure how long he had been transformed. Too long, that was to be sure. Qrow had gone dark as he was wont to do, and James had worried, but James had always worried: he was used to writing off his paranoia as irrational.

It was unhelpful when his paranoia was justified.

“Hold him,” Raven said firmly.

“Of course.” So James held onto Qrow. With practiced ease, Raven slid her odachi out and cut through the air: the portal opened like a red wound torn right in the very air before them.

“This will take us to Taiyang.” Raven turned to hoist Qrow’s other side up again.

The sky overhead was burning. The night was unusually hot, and the stars could not be seen for the light pollution.

They moved through the portal together, and behind them left the combat zone and tumbled out into Ozpin’s office. James and Raven steered Qrow so as to lay him gently against Ozpin’s desk, and none spoke except Taiyang’s gasp.

“It’s as it looks,” Raven said, and she gestured to her twin, the faintness of his heaving breaths punctuating her sentence.

He was a black mass. Qrow’s head was there, and most of his body, but his arms were great wings with a sheen of red in the artificial light. His feet were crow’s feet. Feathers dotted his neck turning into skin. James’ heart, rebuilt as it was, twisted at the sight. He and Raven had been barely able to carry him by themselves, and James shuddered at the thought of going alone. Of finding Qrow alone. The sight had nearly made him faint when he saw it, but Raven had set a hand on his shoulder and told him to move quickly.

How long had Qrow been out there by himself?

He let out a breath he had been holding for hours since he and Raven had first set out.

“So then, Ozpin,” Raven said, cutting through the silence, “This is your doing.”

Ozpin set his cup down on his desk and came to kneel at Qrow’s hulking form. “I am...” he started, and did not finish his sentence.

“Go on. You can say the words.”

“I’m sorry,” he finished.

“Then you should know I won’t forget this.” She crouched at Qrow’s level, beside Ozpin. James stood a step back between the two, watching her sure, certain gaze that hid an old, old fury.

“I had a feeling you would say that,” gravely Ozpin said.

“Alright,” Taiyang said, coming over and reaching out to touch Raven but stopping before he did. James saw the aborted action, but something in Taiyang’s expression did not seem disappointed at not touching her, because knowing better meant he knew her. “What can we do?”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Raven said.

“No.” Taiyang put his hands on his hips. “There’s always something to be done. Come on. This has never happened before, has it?”

Raven waited a moment. Her eyelids lowered and she inclined her head to Taiyang. “It has not. I was not even aware of the possibility. But now it seems obvious that such a power would come with a caveat. Nothing is given so freely.”

“He stayed too long,” Ozpin said.

“I gathered that.”

“I did not expect—”

“I don’t care about what you expected,” Raven said, quick as her sword. “Had you the dignity and respect, you would have told us what you made us.”

Ozpin waited a moment and then he said, “I trusted you with it.”

James shook at the truth of the statement.

“I care little for your trust.” Raven stood and rose like a bird swooping in backwards motion.

“Right now, I think _we’re_ going to need to trust him,” Taiyang said. “We need to help him, Raven.”

Raven said nothing.

“Raven.”

She turned away and rested her hand on the hilt of her scabbard. James was torn between the urge to leave, and the urge to stand with team STRQ.

To watch the steady rise and fall of Qrow’s feathered chest.

“Summer is still out there,” Raven said. “I won’t leave her by herself. Not like Qrow.”

Tai quickly said, “I could go find her.”

“No. I will. I’ll come back to you with her.” A determination entered Raven’s tone. “I’ll find her, and I’ll bring her home, and you’ll be the one to handle Ozpin. If Qrow can’t, you can.”

“Thanks,” Taiyang muttered. Ozpin looked a little ashamed.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” James said, “You simply tell me what you need, and any aid I can give, I shall.”

Raven stared at him hard, but then she jerked her head in a nod. “I respect that. For now, I go by myself.”

As Raven left, James turned to Taiyang, and he opened his mouth to offer help.

Taiyang said instead, “A good reason to get out of here.”

“But a just cause,” James said.

“Yeah, well, might be a good thing Ozpin’s not left with her.”

“I’ve fought with her,” James said, “I know well.”

“Nah.” Taiyang grimaced. “She’s not got a temper like that. I mean I’m worried how much more she’s going to cut into Ozpin’s self-esteem.”

Ozpin let out a great sigh. “I’m old. I’ll cope.”

James asked, “You truly never knew the potential of this happening?”

“No,” Ozpin said truthfully. “Magic is not predictable like aura and semblance. Magic is what it allows itself to be. It is not bound to you. It is never yours.”

“How can give you away something like that?”

“It was never mine to give,” Ozpin said. “That was my only mistake.”

James crouched to reach out and touch Qrow’s shoulder. He stroked his feathers and he heard a soft burr flee Qrow’s throat. He was barely there, but he was, nevertheless, there.

James wanted to tell him it would be fine, in the end. It would be lying. So he said, “We’re here.”

Qrow made a soft noise.

“We’ll fix it,” Taiyang said.

Ozpin studied James carefully, and stood from his crouch. James felt cautious. There was something whirring through the gears of his head that James could neither predict nor clearly see.

“There is a possible solution,” Ozpin said.

“Oh, here we go,” Taiyang muttered.

*

James scrutinised Raven’s tight hold on the handle of her barely drawn sword.

“So then,” she started, “You’re one of Ozpin’s now, too.”

He set a foot back. “I’ve been on a few jobs.”

“What’s so special about you, then?” Her tone was coy.

“My semblance.”

“Like toys,” she spat, and drew her sword out fully. James did not move.

She struck and the arc of her movement was focussed.

So James caught her sword with his hand.

She smiled and then she said, “All right. You can stay.”

James released the sword, though it was more Raven’s decorum of allowing him to do it than her sliding it out.

“It means you’re allowed to hang around,” Qrow said, and he was looking at James’ hand. “That’s how she shows approval.”

“Regularly?”

Qrow smirked. “If she didn’t like you, you wouldn’t have time to even try catching it.”

At that, Raven huffed. “I only didn’t intend to kill him. I’ll leave that to Ozpin.”

“And yet, you’re still here,” he said.

“Only to prove him wrong.”

James slid his gaze between Qrow and Raven: a perfectly matched pair, but the differences were stark. Where Raven’s hair was wild and feathered, Qrow’s messy do was artfully styled. Raven had strong, callused hands, covered by her fingerless gloves, but Qrow’s were delicate and pale, long and lovely. He wore one ring on his ring finger: a small signet with a red jewel.

Qrow was tall and slender. Raven was shorter, impenetrably stocky.

James missed Raven’s smile to consider, though, because he was too busy watching Qrow’s. It was sweet, and secretive, like he was thinking of something else altogether.

He caught James looking.

James did not look away, but he smiled back instead, and Qrow’s smile changed: it seemed to go deeper and deeper, and James was caught again.

“So, will you be coming with our team, then?” Qrow said.

“I’m deployed here in Vale for some months, as it happens,” James said, “So, if you’re in need, certainly.”

“There’s always work,” Raven said. “Salem has her finger in every pudding, as Qrow would put it.”

Qrow raised a finger and corrected, “More like tentacles in every pudding.”

“So to speak.”

“It’s the long game, Jimmy, you’ll see that,” he said, “We try to have fun along the way. Raven’s version of fun can be a little loose in its definition, though.”

Raven slyly smirked. “Shall we spar?”

Qrow slid his gaze to James, and James crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you’re asking nicely.”

*

“He’s fucking with us, right?” Taiyang said.

“I have a terrible feeling that he’s not,” James replied.

“He just makes up the rules. Ozpin just makes up the rules and changes it when he feels like it.”

James reached out a hand and put it on Taiyang’s steady shoulder. “There are things we don’t know about him. I’ll tell you that much.”

“How can you tell?”

“I just do,” James said, and he did not tell him the reason. “But he wasn’t lying. This power... magic, not even Ozpin truly knows it.”

“Where do we even start?”

“Well, I’ll take it as literally as we need to,” James said, “Has Qrow any partners?”

“How could love be magic? I thought magic didn’t _exist _anymore!”

James released his hand and turned back to look at the lift to Ozpin’s quarters, thoughtful. “It’s Qrow’s magic. It’s related to him, at least, if not... his.”

Taiyang groaned.

“Any partners you know about?”

“Well,” he started, “I know _of _some, but I’ve never met any of them. I could get names... jeez, I feel weird about it.”

“It’s understandable,” James said and nodded, “I don’t like it much either.”

Taiyang pursed his chin. “There might be one place we could start.”

“I’m ready for whatever we need to do.” James’ gaze drifted to the floor. “I’ll do whatever I can for him.”

Qrow had been breathing last he saw. James did not enjoy being away and did not enjoy being beholden to an intangible force that currently kept Qrow captive.

James, in fact, loathed it, for more than one reason.

*

James had a hard time keeping track of Raven and Qrow’s whipping movements not because of their speed, but because of Qrow’s dance-like tempo.

He was lovely.

Well-practiced, indeed, and economic in his strikes with his sword, but when his scythe unsheathed itself in clockwork motion, Qrow transformed from a fine swordsman to something else altogether. He cultivated each graceful movement with a harvest of skill.

James would offer to spar with him later in hand-to-hand. He and his gun weren’t suited to that type of action, but he could give over something.

“Enjoying the show?” Qrow called out.

He didn’t even let his taunt interrupt the display.

James hid his smile behind his hand.

Raven pulled back and said, “Halt!” She sheathed her sword. “I say it’s your turn now, James.”

“I’m not suited to that kind of practice,” he said.

“Yes. Your gun is... unusual.”

“It doesn’t even have a sharp end,” Qrow said, “What kind of gun is that?”

“One I only need to use when necessary,” James said. He looked between the twins. “But I can fight hand-to-hand.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “I’ve no time for getting my hands dirty.”

“I do,” Qrow said, “None of my team want to practise. Tai says I fight like I’m in a bar.”

“You _do _fight like you’re in a bar,” Raven said. “I’ve seen it.”

“Yeah, come on, James, you looking funny at me like that? You wanna fight? You wanna fight, good lookin’?”

James, well used to self-discipline in the face of the enemy, did not blush: it was a near thing, though. He, too, was soundly used to a good old spar.

His gloves were a white leather, from an animal he had skinned and cured himself. He removed them and placed them carefully on the ground, where he moved to join the action.

He rolled up his sleeves. Qrow’s gaze tracked the inch-by-inch folds.

“This is a bar fight, c’mon, you’ve got no time for—” Qrow was saying, before James swung. “Oh, all right, be a gentleman about it!”

Raven had stepped back but she had time to say, “Bar fight, Qrow!” Her laugh danced about the grounds.

Qrow had caught his fist and he had a determined glint in his eyes. James did not try to be intellectual about their spar.

He had never been in a bar fight before, and he did not intend to anytime soon. In fact, unprofessional as it was, the thought was still there: he was touching Qrow, and he had such smooth forearms. They went back and forth, and then Qrow started saying, “You flirtin’ with my girl, I’ll fight you!”

“I’m not—are you _roleplaying_?”

“It’s a bar fight! We have to be fighting over something.”

“You took my drink,” James tried. He got Qrow into a lock.

“No, that’s boring. You were trying to take my girl.”

“There’s no girl. And I’m not _taking, _it would be at her discretion as to whom she would like to pay company—Qrow—”

“Fine! There’s no girl! I picked a fight because you’re too handsome and you’re making me look bad.”

Qrow broke out as James said, “I hardly doubt that’s possible.”

“Wait.”

James swung a fist through the air and he ignored what had slipped out.

“Are you saying _you _aren’t handsome or I’m _too handsome_?”

He quickly decided that he would like the spar to be over, so he feinted and then went for the jugular, so to speak.

Tackling Qrow to the ground was not his best idea.

“You wouldn’t do very well in a real bar fight,” Qrow said. “You’d have lost before I broke a stool over your head.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Raven started clapping. Just as James tried to get up, he lost his balance and fell over, and a shadow passed over Qrow’s expression.

*

“I’m terribly sorry,” James said, clasping his hands behind his back. He and Taiyang just stood under the eave of the first house they had tried. The rain had started bucketing. Taiyang had decided that meant bad luck, and then had muttered about Qrow, but James welcomed it.

“Who... oh, you’re Tai,” the woman who answered the door said. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. She was taller than Taiyang, but shorter than James. Few were taller than James. “What are you here for?”

“Uh,” Taiyang started, “so it’s kind of a long story, but...”

Their cover story was somewhat complicated.

“So, you know how no one knows Qrow’s semblance.”

James did not like it.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, and she inched the door slightly to the frame.

“Well, he has kind of a weird semblance. And right now he’s in a trance we can’t get him out of. It involves...”

She squinted as he trailed off. “Go on.”

James noticed Taiyang scrambling. He was a people-person, but James was good at equivocation.

“His semblance is powered on love,” James said.

“And?” she said.

Taiyang opened his mouth and said, in one breath, “He needs true love’s kiss!”

She slammed the door in his face.

“Well, Violet never liked me anyway,” he said under his breath.

James sighed, and made his way back to their car. “I think, if she were Qrow’s true love, she would have been worried at the first mention of a trance, as you so delicately put it.”

“All right then, wise guy military strategist,” Taiyang said huffily, opening his side carelessly, “You tell me your plan of action instead.”

James, leading by example, carefully got in the car and waited and contemplated.

“Well?”

“It must be difficult for you without your team,” James said.

“I’m fine.”

“Usually you’re the emotional support,” he continued. “I’m sorry that I’m unable to offer what you need. But I want you to know I care about Qrow, and we’ll find a way to help him. He may even revert by himself.”

He turned to make eye-contact, to be steady, to try to be what Taiyang needed. With Raven gone, Summer missing, and Qrow stuck in limbo, he wasn’t having an easy time. It was too much already, even for James, but he tried to keep a level-head. Between the two of them, they could manage it.

But there was something in Taiyang’s cool, calm blue-eyes that was shrewd.

“You care about Qrow... a lot,” Taiyang said.

“Of course I do.”

James could practically hear Taiyang's mental processes, so he set out ready to defend himself. It was not his fault. He would not be apologetic for his taste in men. Qrow was... Qrow was easy. He knew that Qrow had a reputation of drinking, philandering, that his semblance was bad luck, that now, he was not wholly a man. But he was. But he was, that was what James thought: when he saw him stretched out on the floor, wings spread out, he saw Qrow. He just saw Qrow.

James didn't make eye contact.

But then Taiyang said, "I think it's a bad thing when you say I'm the guy who manages emotions."

"I know," James said. "If there's one critique of team STRQ I have, it's that none of you know how to talk about your feelings properly."

"Oh, get a therapist," Taiyang muttered.

He did not realised how lucky he was, having a team, James thought. He had lost his own. But he said, "I think you're supposed to be telling yourself that. Besides, it's important to have somebody to talk to." At that, James started the engine. The rain had not yet ceased. Were James in the habit of attributing bad things happening always to Qrow, he would say it rained for him. As it happened, James was not.

James simply believed it was raining.

Taiyang said, “I think we might be in the wrong direction with his... partners.”

“I see.”

“Does true love have to be romantic?”

James considered it. He put his selfish thoughts aside, and said, “I imagine not, now that you say it.”

*

James stood at attention. Ozpin’s debriefing, elongated as it was with a tangent about the new brand of hot chocolate he had tried that morning, had grown long. But his spine was literally made of steel. James could hold out.

Qrow had started wandering the room.

“It had a fatty mouthfeel,” Ozpin said, “Which, of course, carries the sweetness quite well.”

James could not help tracking Qrow out of the corner of his eye, arms behind his head lackadaisically. His dark hair, and the bright light streaming through, sign of a fresh spring morning. It seemed like a day of good fortune, for all that brightness. No sign of rain. Just sweet golden light falling on the slope of Qrow’s profile, the lovely distraction of his back. James was disciplined. James was focussed. James let his gaze slip a little, low.

Qrow walked behind Ozpin and started miming Ozpin talking.

He kept his mouth in a straight line and said nothing.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Qrow mouthed.

“And, of course, I can tell exactly what Qrow is doing behind me,” Ozpin concluded.

Qrow snapped up straight. “If I will, Oz, you’re the one with a penis-shaped chair. It's distracting and I can't focus.”

Ozpin sighed.

“Sometimes,” James said, “I’m worried about our ability to defeat Salem.”

“Oh, right,” Ozpin said. “As I was saying.”

James was a disciplined and focussed man. He was cursed the day he set his eyes on Qrow: fair, and sweet, and lovely, and that was it. That was it, for James: he would stand there forever, waiting, just for Qrow to give him his favour.

*

“I’m going to find Raven,” Taiyang said, “I thought I’d let you know before I go.”

It was perhaps embarrassing that Taiyang had known where to find James, waiting in the dark room after Ozpin had retired for the night. James had not slept in his room for sometime. He found it far more relaxing to keep sight of Qrow, his enormous wings sometimes, from an angle in the dark, making him look like a fallen angel. So James inclined his head to Taiyang, and ran a hand over Qrow's wings. He briefly stirred.

“There’s something I must tell you,” James said.

“You do?”

“It’s... relevant to the circumstances,” he carefully said. “It would be remiss of me not to. Come.”

He pulled Taiyang aside, across the lonely, echoing size of Ozpin’s office, and tried not to look back at where Qrow had been hidden away from anyone to see him.

“If you can’t find Raven,” James said, “I have an idea.”

Taiyang scrutinised him. James desperately, desperately wanted to say nothing, and he hoped it was not obvious on his face. But he had no choice. He readily admitted to himself that, likely, Taiyang already knew, and Taiyang was going to get Raven anyway. He would not need to admit it aloud.

James knew he needed to say it, for the sake of transparency.

“Qrow does not reciprocate my feelings,” James said, with surety. “But potentially, it might still be applicable.” He cleared his throat.

Taiyang covered his mouth.

“Because... of the depth... of my feeling,” James tried.

Taiyang squeaked.

“Such that... true love’s kiss may... because he’s my...” James stopped. “Not that true love is—outside of magic, of course, a concrete—concept—Taiyang, I am trying. For Qrow’s sake.”

Still Taiyang said nothing.

“He’s—he is my—”

That was when James realised that Taiyang was smothering a smile.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Taiyang said.

James watched him go, but he turned as the lift door slid shut, and came to sit beside Qrow. With care he removed one glove at a time and placed them at Qrow’s feet.

He had never expected that such great a threat as Salem would exist, and still, his worst fear would be this sight before him. Qrow, lying prone, looking vulnerable, and it was all beyond James’ reach. He could not say he expected the world to be full of such things, but he thought himself fit to the task of thwarting Ozpin’s great enemy.

He had certainly not expected to find himself so deeply and so awfully tethered to such a man. Not any man, no, but Qrow Branwen.

But it was Salem that drew them together, after all. Perhaps he should thank her.

*

“Let’s go for a hunt,” Raven said.

James looked up from his book and quickly hid the title. Raven was standing with her twin, having opening James’ door without his permission. Not that he minded. It was just the principle of the thing.

But he watched Qrow’s gaze narrow, and he slouched in the room with his hands on his hips. “What are you readin’?”

“I feel like I’m getting bullied at school,” James said, “I just want you to know that’s what you’re evoking right now.”

“Were we bullies, Raven?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I got bullied by Tai,” Qrow said. “How could I be a bully?”

“If being told to wear a skirt is bullying, Qrow, then we don’t start with you.” She smirked.

“But he tricked me!”

“Well, tricking you must not have been very nice,” James said, surreptitiously sliding his book behind his back in the chair, “But there’s nothing wrong with a skirt. I’m sure you looked fine in it, Qrow.”

Qrow grumbled, “You’re just saying that.”

James wanted to say that he could wear a potato sack and he would still look eligible, but that was hardly something he could admit aloud. Instead he said, and it was dangerous, “You have the legs for it.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me. Why did you hide that book?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” James said calmly.

Raven huffed and crossed her arms. “I want to go for a Grimm hunt, Qrow, not pull James’ pigtails.”

“I’m not pulling his pigtails, I just wanted to see what he hid.”

“His diary,” Raven said, “Now let’s go.”

“Is it your diary?” Qrow asked James. But before James could answer, Qrow was toppling over the chair to try and get behind him. James bravely put up a front, and he felt childish, indeed, but he could not bear for Qrow to find what he was reading.

It wasn’t that it was shameful.

“Jimmy, Jimmy, let me see,” he said, “Come on, is it a diary? What’re you hiding?”

James tried flipping Qrow off, but they weren’t sparring, and he didn’t want to hurt him. But then Qrow’s hand on slipped to James’ waist, and for a moment between their scuffle, James let himself feel it. It seemed to fit there perfectly.

So James gave up the fight and jumped out of his chair, dusted his hands off and raised them in defence.

“I got it!” Qrow said triumphantly, “Now I’ll know all of Atlas’ secret—'The Disgraced Knight and the Old Maiden’_, _James, this is a ROMANCE NOVEL?”

James drew in a deep, measuring breath. He said, “It’s deeply emotional. The knight serves the maiden his whole life—”

Qrow had opened to the page James was reading.

Nevertheless, he continued and said, “Despite his servitude, he never expects the maiden to return his affections... he spends his whole life bound to his honour, even when he fails. It’s touching.”

Then Qrow started reading. “His armour was dirty and didn’t shine. He hadn’t polished it in years. But still, she rested her hand on his helmet—oh god—”

It was James’ favourite part.

“—and she kissed the temple, left with dirt on her lips. “Come back,” she pleaded, but he did not reply.”

Qrow closed the book gently and set it down back on the seat.

Raven started to leave and said, “So, are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Qrow said. James set to grab his gun.

“Where are we heading out to?” he asked.

“Grimm activity outside a Vale suburb,” Raven said, “In the wildbush. Nothing we can’t handle. But a Nevermore had been sighted.”

“That’s unusual,” James said, “The closest they’ve ever come to habitation is the school grounds where Ozpin draws them in for the students.”

“Yes. It is unusual. That’s why we’re going.”

“I take it Summer and Taiyang have business elsewhere,” James said.

So it was the three of them that came to find it was more than a Nevermore that had made its way far into civilian boundaries. In fact, it was two.

“Oh, good,” Raven said, “A decent fight.”

Qrow slicked back his hair and James watched, with his usual mesmerisation, at the beauty of Harbinger unfolding. The twins together looked unstoppable, and for a vague moment, James felt out of place. But then Raven turned to him and she half-smiled, pulling her own sword out slowly. “Have a strategy you’d like to share, or shall we do it _my _way?”

“I vote strategy,” Qrow said.

“Too bad Summer isn’t here.”

“Yes, well,” James said, “If there’s two at once, we need to split them up.”

“I’m fine on my own,” Raven said.

“Qrow?”

“Let’s make it eat it,” he said.

It wasn’t unusual business. Grimm activity rarely was, but not near enough to the city like this. So James said, “We need to mind the inhabitants not far over. Let’s draw it out. Raven, try to do it for the other.”

Then a great shadow passed over them. The first Nevermore. It made its appearance obvious.

“We don’t have to go far,” Raven said, and so she went after it.

James enjoyed fighting with Qrow. Arguing, too, but real fighting. He didn’t have a fancy weapon, but he had his hand and he had his mind. His heart, too, and they followed the trail of the second Nevermore, and before James could say anything, Qrow had already spun himself out and recoiled through the air to land on the Nevermore.

“Qrow!”

But Qrow did not listen, and when he had dragged his scythe down the back of the Nevermore, Qrow transformed and swooped off again. The Nevermore followed his flight.

James knew with sudden fear that Qrow could surely not keep that pursuit up, so he took afoot on the hunt. His footsteps thundered but gained ground quickly.

He followed Qrow all the way to an open field, and he had done good drawing it away. James had not minded being left behind, but he would’ve appreciated a tip.

The Nevermore flung its sharp feathers are Qrow, and James for all the world thought his cape would catch. But he changed again and evaded the Grimm’s attack.

“It’s a party!” Qrow said, landing beside him, one minute bird and the next man.

It did not seem that their opponent agreed. James hardly did either.

It had been going fine after that, with Qrow and his acrobatic moves that made James wonder what exactly they taught them at Beacon, but then, he thought of Qrow’s upbringing and realised that he wasn’t particularly regular. James had been foolishly distracted by this before he realised that the Nevermore was not the only Grimm around, and the beast that clubbed him over the head made its entrance clear.

James got up, dizzy, but mostly angry. Except now they had two Grimm to contend with, and James had let himself be distracted. It would have gone fine if Qrow hadn’t been so distressed.

“James!” Qrow called, “Get BACK.”

Later, James would insist it wasn’t Qrow’s fault. Because it wasn’t. It was bad luck and distraction, yes, but the Nevermore was defeated; Raven had returned on her own with her victory. So James’ aura had broken in their fight, yes. So James had seen what Qrow was trying to do—draw James out, away from the oncoming onslaught, but James had thought: well, better him than me. James would give himself for Qrow anyday, any time, and it would happen again.

“That was me,” Qrow said, night-cradling James in his arms. “That was me,” he repeated, and he kept saying it over and over again.

“I don’t understand,” James said.

So he ground out, “My semblance.”

“Your semblance?” James sighed.

“Bad luck.” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “You already know I make your life hard, Jimmy. Not hard to see it.”

James had thought it was funny then, though, because it was simply not true. He said as much.

“Your aura broke.”

“My aura is inconsequential,” James said. “For you, Qrow. I’ve done more and lost even more for it.”

But Qrow shook his head and he didn’t listen, so James tried to stand, and Qrow hushed him. They’d wait for Raven.

*

“I found her,” Raven gasped out, and with her, Summer slid out the portal with Taiyang. James was relieved, though he hoped none of them caught how he was looking at Qrow.

Summer was pale as snow, but her white cloak was covered in black soot. She looked hardly cognizant.

“Taiyang, take Summer immediately to the infirmary,” she commanded, sounding like somebody who wasn’t a team leader, but had to be. “Don’t alert Ozpin. Well, as best you can.”

“Way ahead of you,” he said, and they shared a brief look. It was relief. It was victory. James felt joyous just catching it secondhand.

He didn’t have a team anymore. He took it where he could.

“So, true love’s kiss,” Raven said, “will save Qrow.”

“As it happens,” James intoned, and he let his hand drift to card through Qrow’s hair. He was in the same state as Summer, but at least, they were all home.

“I don’t know why you need me here, then,” she said simply.

“You’re his twin.”

“It’s true love’s kiss, James, did you not hear the old man?”

“It could be platonic,” he said, “I’m sure some true love is that way. And you were born together at the same time. It’s magic, after all.”

Raven had a cut across her cheek. It was still bleeding.

“Your aura,” he said.

“I’ll be fine. Summer is safe. Taiyang is safe,” she said. “The health of the team, above all.”

“Very well.”

She turned and looked at him hard. It was a penetrating gaze, and few could stand under it long. “I won’t do your job for you.”

“It’s not mine.”

“I said what I said.”

James intended to reply, but he felt movement stir beneath his hand. Qrow said, voice raspy, “James?”

He about broke there. It was the first word he had spoken, and his voice sounded like a caw.

“I’m here,” he said.

“James,” he said again.

“Oh, Qrow,” Raven said, and it sounded like something she never had to say in very long. Like they were children again.

“Tch. Raven,” Qrow muttered. His voice was rough. He was breathing.

His eyes were closed, and the soft folds of his eyelids fluttered. Ashy eyelashes, long and lustrous. For as in pain Qrow seemed, in a half-man, half-monster state, there was still something effervescently beautiful about him. There always was. James could hardly look away, man or not.

James inched forward silently, hoping he was not being ridiculous. Hoping more than anything that he could take Qrow out of pain, and set him somewhere safe, and bring him back from delirium.

He kissed Qrow on his forehead. Against his sweaty temple, that housed the ridges and valleys of his soft, clever mind, of the man that James had spent time falling in love with, and not minding especially much.

He only knew where he was meant to stand. It was afar.

He never meant to act on it.

So, when he pulled back, and Qrow said in a weak voice, “James?” he did not answer.

Raven took pity on him.

“It’s just me, Qrow,” she said, and now James was indebted for life, and he knew she thought him weak. Let her think him weak, for this one failing.

Before him, miraculously, James watched the feathers recede, and his perfect, human skin return, sliding over him, his arms retracting from their gargantuan length. They could have surrounded both him and Qrow and they would have been completely hidden, but all that was left, as they retracted, were strewn black feathers on the floor.

His long legs returned, and his human feet. James stood and stepped back.

“Thank you,” he said to Raven.

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Do not thank me for your weakness.”

She was right, after all.

It was his weakness, and he should have known better than to have indulged it.

*

“Sir, permission to speak?”

“Go ahead, Ironwood,” his superior said.

“Professor Ozpin is requesting my deployment again.”

“Is he, now. You planning on transferring to Beacon eventually, then, son?”

“No, sir,” James said, “If I may, sir, but Ozpin seems to have taken a liking to me.”

“We have a liking for you here, son.”

“I know, sir, Atlas Academy is still as much my home. But I think it works in our favour to have such a positive working relationship with Beacon, sir.”

“Is that so.”

James tried not to push his luck, and said, “If you agree so, sir.”

So, officially, James put in for another three-month transfer, signed off by his CO and with, to boot, official request of Ozpin.

If Ozpin did not know that James looked most of all forward to seeing Qrow, then he did not need to know. James would fight against evil and the Grimm, but it helped to have good teammates.

Good teammates. That was right.

On his break, James applied for a call to send through. He waited in line tapping his foot. He tapped his hand against his forearm. He waited.

When Qrow answered, James let himself feel it. James was such a fool. James was a terrible, terrible fool.

“You rapscallion,” Qrow said, “Are you flunking out on the army?”

“No, I’m—developing relations with Beacon,” James said, “It’s official business. Ozpin wants me there, at any rate.”

“Jimmy, I’d wonder if you had a crush on one of team STRQ if I didn’t know better.”

James floundered and said, “No—no—of course not—I just—it’s professional, Qrow, don’t presume.”

“I specifically said I wasn’t presuming. You got something you wanna say?”

“No, of course not.”

“If you got a thing for my sister, I just want you to know I think it’s gross, and Taiyang would be sad, but he’d be a gentleman and step aside.”

“I think Raven would certainly not allow him to step aside.”

“Yeah. True. I guess she’s not really your type, is she?”

“My type?”

“Yeah. Your type would be... hm... You need a rule-breaker.”

“A rule-breaker.” James had seven minutes left on his call-time still.

“Yeah. Someone to shake you up. Good-looking, too, because you’ve gotta take nice photos for Atlas. Maybe a bit of a rough edge about him.”

James sighed. “You’re describing yourself, Qrow.”

“Oh. Oh, hell, I am.”

It made James uncomfortable with how right he was.

“That’d be preposterous,” Qrow said, and laughed, his voice tinny across the line, so far away. It would not be long.

“I doubt very much I’m somebody—clambered after on the market, at any rate.” James’ mouth and brain betrayed him. He did not mean to say that, but he did, because it seemed the truth leapt out like that. It was his curse.

“Wait, wait, what the hell? Jimmy? Here at Beacon you’ve been voted most eligible bachelor. Twice. Even when Tai was single he lost.”

“Tai works against himself,” James said. Then he caught up to what Qrow said. “Wait, most eligible bachelor? You _vote _for that?”

“Sure. Tai, Raven—against her will—Summer, Oz. Glynda joins in. So do the students sometimes too. I might’ve rigged the contest, though.”

“You didn’t.”

“I spread fliers,” Qrow said, “With your face on it.”

James sighed, and against his own better judgement, it sounded dreamy.

“Don’t know why you like hanging around so much, though,” Qrow added. “Not much good fortune around here.”

James disagreed.

*

James was better alone.

“It was Raven that did it,” Qrow said, and Ozpin had his hands clasped, listening intently. “Of course, not that I had any idea it was possible.”

“Raven?” Ozpin said, inquisitively, but his gaze drifted to James. James shook his head no. He couldn’t.

Qrow could not know the unfathomable depth James had for him, the sweet, restless spot, that he had carved out in James’ chest. There was room there, for him, as if it had been waiting forever for him to slot in.

James had few things: duty and honour. He had only the fight.

“So, were you ever gonna tell me?”

James considered: no. It would stay secret forever.

It was true of them both.

“I had not considered the potential,” Ozpin said, “What led you to it?”

“Desperation,” Qrow said.

Wasn’t it always that.

He asked, “Who found me?”

“I did,” James said softly, “With Raven.”

“How?”

“Raven’s semblance.”

“No. I know that, dummy,” Qrow said, “I mean how did you know.”

James blinked. He did not expect that question, and he did not know how to answer it. How could he tell him that magic was real, and something had stirred inside him that told him where to go? Where to find him? That something was wrong, and all he wanted to do, single-mindedly, was run up that hill and find him?

James was increasingly sure that there was something more than intuition afoot. If love had bound Qrow’s transformation so... then he wondered whatever else was affected by it.

Just how much Ozpin had not told them, the very depth of this ancient, unspoken magic. James knew it went deeper than this.

“I just knew,” he said, and as he said it, he damned himself. Something in Qrow’s expression shifted.

“You just knew.”

“You were out for months. I’d gone and come back twice and you were still gone.” James sighed. “And somebody wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

Ozpin started to justify himself, but Qrow stretched out a hand. “Nuh uh. No. I know it was a dangerous op, but that was too much, Oz. If it weren’t for—if Raven—”

“But Raven did,” James said quietly. “She listened to me.”

Qrow covered his face. “I have a bad feeling about that, to be honest.”

“Why is that, Qrow?” Ozpin asked.

“Because you’re not doing a great job at keeping my sister’s loyalty.”

“If I may,” James said, “I think you only have it because of team STRQ, Ozpin.”

Ozpin set his head in his hands and seemed to contemplate his desk. James stood with his arms behind his back, and, his ever-present problem, tried not to let his gaze linger on Qrow.

It had to be squashed. James had to let it go. He knew he loved Qrow, but Qrow did not love him. He gave himself over to save Qrow, but the evidence was clear.

Because Qrow had already rejected him, and he would respect that.

*

James was professional in his interest in Beacon.

“Ever get a guided tour of the city, Jimmy?” Qrow asked.

James sighed at the nickname, but, if he were truthful, he enjoyed it too much. It felt like their own in-joke, but at James’ expense. He did not so much mind.

“No,” he said, “I’m so often only here on business.”

“Then let me take you out,” Qrow said.

James snapped his gaze up from his lunch. “When?”

It sounded like a date.

“After lunch? We’ll pick up chicks at a bar later.”

“I’ve no interest,” James said, “I’d just like to see the city.” _And walk with you, and watch you in the moonlight, _he did not say, because James knew better.

“All right, all right, old man,” Qrow said, “No chicks.”

James picked a fresh shirt out, after, and he wandered from his guestroom to Qrow’s quarters. He tried standing with his hands behind his back, and then in his front, but he decided to casually rest against the wall.

Qrow came out in his grey shirt, but his hair looked neatly done. He looked as beautiful as he always did, those deep, penetrating eyes of his. Sometimes James thought that he saw straight through him.

Qrow explained it better than him, though, why Qrow was so well-suited: rule-breaker; challenged him; handsome; endlessly fascinated him... mysterious... beautiful... graceful...

It seemed that Qrow had been talking to him but he had been busy dreaming. “I’m sorry,” James said, “What were you saying?”

“I said, I charge thirty dollars an hour for my services,” Qrow said.

“I thought you were doing it as a friendly favour.”

“Ha! A Huntsman needs a living wage, Jimmy.”

“But you already work for Ozpin.”

“I need to treat myself,” Qrow said, and James did not say that he would treat him. He would take his own jacket off and place it on a puddle for Qrow to walk over. He would carry Qrow in his arms up a steep hill.

“I see,” he said, and they started walking.

Vale was warmer than Atlas, so James had left his jacket, but kept his top buttoned. His gloves on. It was still mild enough for that. Vale did not seem to have a consistent architecture, changing every few blocks, and Qrow seemed content enough to point out who lived where: this is where people from Mistral had settled some decades ago, and there was the Atlesian embassy—James knew that one at least—, and here was the noodle place Qrow liked. James made a note of that.

They stopped near the docks. The sunset over Vale was brighter than Atlas a strange, otherworldly, orange glow, warming James right down to his Atlesian winter character. When he turned and looked slightly down at Qrow, shorter than him, there the light was again: dancing off his red, red eyes, that had turned molten gold. His lips had gone pomegranate instead.

“Qrow,” James said softly, sure enough, that speaking had disturbed the spell. “I have to ask.”

Qrow was blasé. “What’s that, Jimmy?”

“Was this a date?”

James, fearing the worst, watched Qrow go through several expressions: shock, fear, and then it morphed into a laugh. “No, no, oh, did you really think that?”

James deflected, panicking, and said, “No, no, of course not.”

“You were bein’ funny. Real good joke.”

James was not joking, but he understood what Qrow was doing, and he took it sincerely. “Of course,” he agreed, and inclined his head, “Perhaps we should retire for dinner.”

“Yeah, let me pay for you, darling,” he said, and he laughed again, almost nervously.

James got the message loud and clear.

*

It had been the line. It was the line James drew. If he thought he had lost his heart, then he was wrong, because it had been given back to him, and it felt like it barely beat the whole time Qrow was transformed.

He had wondered what else the magic was capable of. How much else, than the maidens and the twins, left in the world, what made them so special. What tied them all together.

James knew when he was being lied to.

James knew there was more to why he could unseal Qrow’s curse, and he had a terrible feeling he would not find out for some time. But he knew, now, to keep watch over Qrow, even from a distance, in case it ever happened again. Because he would be there. Even if it destroyed him to love and love and love and know what a fool he truly was.

“Ozpin,” James said, “Before I return to Atlas, I’m going to ask you something, and you may answer it once.”

“Oh,” Ozpin said, “Of course, James. Whatever you need.”

The eccentric old man. “Maybe more than one.”

“Go on, then.”

“Is there more to the curse that kept Qrow from returning to human form?”

Slowly, Ozpin said, “No,” and it was a lie.

James nodded his head. He looked outside and saw a raven, with beady eyes.

He understood what was going on.

“Why love?”

Ozpin slid a little down in his chair. “It’s... a very long story.”

That was true.

“Magic binds,” he said. “Magic... is an assassin’s embrace.”

“You’ll never tell.”

“There’s not much more to tell, I’m afraid.”

There was. There was. Something in James’ gut told him. It wasn’t just his semblance. It was Qrow, prone, vulnerable, and made of something from before man came to be.

James looked back to the raven and then he left, for the last time to last several years, to find Raven. She would be waiting for him, after all, and demanding answers.

He could only give so much.

“There was always more to it,” she said, “I knew it, that brazen—”

“Raven, please. I didn’t tell you this to cause discord.”

“There already was discord when he did this to us. Does this mean—Taiyang is _bound _to me, the same way? Only he can fix me if I transform like Qrow?”

James realised how urgent the problem was for her, too. She had spent more time in her bird transformation for Qrow, but shorter stretches. She found it easier to control, he knew that much: the magic just seemed to slip into her.

“There’s no way of knowing now,” he said.

“I do not like the implications,” she ground out.

“I’m sorry.”

She sighed, and her hand returned to her sword hilt, its ever-present placement. “This power does not truly belong to me. It was a stolen gift. It was not Ozpin’s to give. And now, it is hardly mine to keep.”

“It’s not hard for you to be careful, Raven,” he said, “It is, after all, what you are known for.”

“Only because I never let it get to my head. It could be devastating. Had Qrow not had you, where do you think he would be right now?”

“I don’t—”

She turned and fully faced him, and despite their height difference, he felt that she had come down to his level. “You saved him,” she said, “Your love saved him. For that, I am ever grateful. You could not tell him yourself, and that is your own folly that I won’t carry for you. But I realise the true gravity of this. It could have been me. He could have been by himself. I didn’t even think to search—”

“But I did,” he said.

“And I would have called myself weak for worrying.”

“So let me do the worrying.” James tried to smile encouragingly. “I may not be—able—to be with Qrow—but, Raven, I meant it when I said it. I’ll do whatever I can to protect him.”

“How much would you truly give up?”

“Myself,” he said, and it was wholly true.

She seemed to sense that. “It’s ridiculous, you know.”

“It is,” he said.

“I don’t understand it.”

“You don’t need to.”

A beat passed, and she turned to leave. But then she stopped, and she said, “Thank you.”

*

“Where’s Qrow?” James asked.

Raven looked up from her whetstone. She set it down. Then, she said, “Gone.”

“Do you know why?”

“Ozpin.”

“You’re rarely of few words, Raven,” he said, rolling his shoulders. James should have been worried the first time he visited. But now, he had not seen Qrow in too long, and some thread through him told him it was wrong. They should have been worried. Qrow might have made a good spy, but he was never good alone for too long. Like James.

Raven said, “Well, Ozpin had a special task for him. He did not require my skillset. And Ozpin has been more and more often, lately, sending my brother away, and myself in the other direction. One would have to wonder.”

James did not need to wonder what Raven was intimating. “You’ve always been distrustful of Ozpin, Raven, but you seem increasingly so.”

“Don’t you wonder about his plan to stop an unstoppable, ancient foe? Whom he has been at war with for who knows how long? Just how much precisely do you, James, know about Ozpin?”

He wanted to find Qrow. That was what he knew.

“Do you know what my semblance is?”

“No. Clearly only Ozpin does. Else why would he have chosen you?”

He sat down beside her on the bench. Her sword looked drenched in blood, but it was just aesthetics. “I have an in-built lie detector,” he said.

Her eyes slightly widened. Only slightly, but a great deal for her. “I doubt lies by omission count.”

“They don’t. It’s tremendously easy to tell, otherwise.”

“So what are you saying then? Get to it.”

“Ozpin lies,” he said. “I understand why he does. But he’s not being especially clever right now. He won’t tell me where he sent Qrow.”

Raven sighed. “I suppose I’ll share mine, too,” she said, and stood and drew her sword. “If you’re insistent on finding Qrow. I can’t guarantee that Ozpin will be happy. I doubt anybody can predict him well.” She smirked.

“Raven,” he said, “Come with me to find him.”

She turned away from him then. “I’ll take you to him.”

“Raven.”

“No.”

“You know as well as I do, that wherever he is, something has gone wrong,” he said. “Ozpin is doing nothing.”

That seemed to do something. The gravity of it hit James, as he realised that convincing Raven of anything was like moving a mountain. “This is on you. If we touch something we shouldn’t.”

He put out a hand for her to shake. “On my word,” he said, because that was what all he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think - it gives me incentive to write more. (:


	2. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A perspective swap interlude... Chapter 3 up in a day or two depending on time zones.

Qrow’s semblance must have started working against him. The only person that could help him now was gone.

Raven wouldn’t be here to save him, even if he’d always secretly believed she’d come back. He held onto that hope the way squabbling siblings always do, and if she’d left because of Yang or he copied her homework or he wouldn’t let _her _copy his homework or Qrow had killed somebody he shouldn’t or _she _had killed somebody she shouldn’t, he just expected her back.

Taiyang had told him once that James thought they needed therapists, or something to that effect. Qrow thought that sounded about right. It was bad when Qrow thought he was the only emotionally sensible one.

Well, it was more likely to be Taiyang, but Qrow wasn’t about to admit that on his deathbed.

He was stranded alone in several feet of snow, and he could hardly drag himself to cover. The last and only time he’d been like this, he had a memory of fire. Being found and carried to safety, then a cold and soft hand petting at his feathers as if they weren’t the work of a misshapen beast. Qrow had felt it then and felt it now too, the ugliness at his core that could finally be seen. His semblance wasn’t always so obvious. At least this showed it.

He had felt James there. He knew it, he was sure of it, the air pressure in the room moving as Qrow faded in and out, wondering at the sensation of a human mind and bird wings. He had hoped it was James, anyway, despite knowing better.

Qrow knew better. He had the curse deep inside him, and old Oz had seen it: that must have been why he was chosen for it.

Qrow knew better than to think of himself as anything but a curse, so it had seemed fitting that his end would come about this way: cold, alone, transformed, in foreign territory. None of Ozpin’s tricks to save him, even if Qrow had always foolishly believed in them. Qrow believed in magic. Qrow believed in the fight.

James had too. Qrow was sure that was why he loved him, and why he knew James would never: that James never should’ve even looked at him twice. Bad luck once, the second time worse.

The snow swept over him, and left his oilslick feathers with a white veil flush. He dirtied it. Just by sitting there.

He tried to count things in his favour. He had stopped drinking and gone sober and got Ruby and company to safety. Not that he was much help as a damsel with the venom in his system. But if anything he had stayed and tried, and that was all Qrow could have ever done. Out of all the members of his team he hadn't done so badly.

Qrow was never very good at giving up, so it took a lot of effort to rest against the barren tree stripped of all life in the blizzard. He heaved out a breath once and then twice and tried his feathers for good measure.

Raven wasn’t coming.

“Not coming,” he said to himself, but then he remembered that James had come then, too. But he couldn’t break the seal. He couldn’t break it.

His eyelids fluttered. No one was meant to stay in two places at once, and Qrow existed in the borders. Maybe he was old enough to go. One part of him was sure the kids had it together, the other part wanted to see how good they did. If Raven were here she’d harp on about his guilt complex. If James were here, when they were young, it might have been different.

James was still as dashing now as he was then, even grey around the edges and more paranoia than necessary.

But Qrow knew better.

“Not coming,” he said to himself, again and again and again. It had become a melody, a chant, a dirge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think - it gives me incentive to write more. (:


	3. Chapter 3

Ozpin summoned James. “Come to Vale,” he said, the hologram of his blue head looking more like the apparition of a wizard than a headmaster.

James had not heard from Vale in too long, and less still than from Qrow. The last time he had received a message from Qrow was a text asking where he was and then, ten minutes later, telling him he had the wrong number.

James did not reply.

The still waters of peacetime drowned James. Sometimes he wondered if it was like this for all Huntsman and Huntresses. Yet sometimes he wondered if it was just because he had to harden his heart.

So James returned once again to Vale. He had a terrible feeling it was not for a friendly visit. He had a terrible feeling that Ozpin needed him to manage interpersonal dynamics. Glynda could move things with her wand: James could move people.

They had both agreed that Ozpin needed a secretary, though.

James asked Glynda as much if that was what he was really here for.

She sighed and said, “I’m afraid that you’re correct.”

“What else would Ozpin need me for?”

At that, Glynda raised an eyebrow and sardonically said, “I’ve heard you have your own magical powers.”

“Never, Glynda,” he said, and stepped in the lift. He may have expected Ozpin sitting at his desk, brooding, but instead he was playing with Jenga blocks.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Ozpin said. “I’m working on something.”

Glynda sighed.

“I have a working theory about magic,” he continued.

“No.”

“It’s like Jenga blocks.”

James half-wished Qrow was there to make fun of Ozpin behind his back.

“Now,” Ozpin said, “I have some news to share with you. What you do with it is not my responsibility.”

“I don’t follow,” James said.

“It’s... sensitive.”

“Sensitive.”

“Team STRQ, “Ozpin pronounced, “Has officially split. Raven... took her leave.” Ozpin stood from the floor and clasped his hands behind his back.

“She’s gone?” James asked. Though he had been gone for some time, and Raven’s loyalty was not with Ozpin, he never expected this of her.

“You’ll have to ask Qrow for yourself.”

At that, James knew he was truly cursed.

“To hell with that,” he said, and Ozpin seemed taken aback at his language, “I’ll hunt her down myself.”

“She’s—well,” Ozpin said, “She’s gone home, so to speak.”

“I don’t follow.”

James had known the twins were both lying about where they came from, certainly. But it had never been clear to him what was the line between a white lie and not. What they lied for he did not know. He assumed a bad family they didn’t want to return to. It would have explained their ambivalence about mentioning home, but James had never wanted to pry.

If Qrow wanted to tell him, he would.

But James couldn’t let this lie as is, unless Raven left for a good reason. Few could hurt her, if physically: then who had scared her? Who had made her run?

Her trust had been with her team. So he had thought. First, he decided, he would see Qrow, and ask what had happened, because Raven on their side was necessary. Second, he would then go find Raven, ask what she was doing, and then he would hang around until she got so sick of him she would have to come back.

That was his duty. He would keep them together. He did not join Ozpin’s round table just for the fun of it, and he didn’t only stay because he had loved Qrow terribly. It was bigger than that. It was honourable.

“Made up your mind, I see,” Ozpin said. “You always manage it.”

James said, “Keep counting on it. You’re not perturbed by this?”

“I had a feeling this would happen.”

It was no lie. But there must have been something to make Raven break.

So he got on a ship first, and went to Patch.

He landed in their backyard. All things considered, he didn’t disrupt the sunflowers, so he figured it was fine.

James, however, felt uneasy in his stomach. He gripped the frame of his ship as he disembarked, trying not to think too hard about where he had arrived.

“You brought the cavalry,” that scruffy voice said.

“No, I came in my own ship. By myself. I hope you don’t mind me parking here,” James said.

“IT’S MY HOUSE,” Taiyang yelled from inside said house.

“I apologise for the timing, and the intrusion, but I’ve been told there’s no reception out here.

Qrow nodded. “No liquor stores, either.” There was a slight drunken pause to his speech. James had a bad feeling.

“There’s a matter of business I’d like to discuss,” James said.

“Business, eh? That’s all you’re here for. Could Salem wait another day?”

“I meant,” James said, “Regarding your missing sister.”

“So you caught wind of that,” Qrow said, and then a little blonde girl came toddling out to see the commotion. She had vivid, violet eyes.

James said suddenly, “She had a baby?”

“You pieced that together quick.”

“No one even told me.”

“Because that was when she left,” Qrow said. “This is Yang, by the way. Say hi to Uncle James, Yang.”

“Hi,” Yang said, and then she bounded down the steps and hugged James’ leg. “Big ship.”

“That’s right,” he said, and tried not to cry. He outstretched his right hand and petted Yang’s wild head of hair. She didn’t seem to mind the metal.

She was so preciously tiny. He put it together in his head: Ozpin. Her power. The transformation. A little girl.

Maybe Raven wasn’t somebody he recognised anymore. But he had seen her scared. He had known, and seen it, and surely too had Qrow.

But then he looked up, and he had to squint to see it, but he saw a raven resting on a branch, head tilted to the side curiously.

Perhaps he would stay, for now, and ask what happened and what was lost. There was something missing in the story.

Qrow leant against the front verandah, nodding his head inside. James had a vision of another life where he came home and Qrow stood at the front door beckoning him in.

Yang bounded ahead of him. He tried not to let his gaze linger on Qrow, but he couldn’t help himself. He looked sallow, the shadows under his eyes deep. Qrow had always preferred sleeping on the floor or in generally poor conditions, but it didn’t look like he’d slept at all.

“You don’t look like you’ve slept.”

Qrow shrugged.

James found Taiyang puttering about in the kitchen, slicing up fruit. There was peanut butter and lime juice to go with it.

He eyed it up and then Taiyang explained. “Speaking of changes around here... Summer’s... pregnant.”

James slowly turned to Qrow, who was making his way to flop in a chair. They made eye contact. He raised his eyebrows. Qrow raised his back. Then he seemed to cycle through several expressions, the five phases of shock: disbelief, horror, confusion, then back around to disbelief, and then finally he settled on angry.

“You think _I’m _the one who—”

“Taiyang was with _Raven_—”

“Who left, like the man I’m talking to—”

“I didn’t leave, I have a career—!”

“Raven has a _tribe _and she’s a leader, too! Why do you think I knocked up _Summer_?”

“Don’t talk about Summer that way!”

“You think—”

“Could you two cut it out?” Taiyang interrupted, and then tapped Qrow on the head with a wooden spatula. “She’s napping. Besides, it wasn’t Qrow.”

James pursed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

“There’s no way it would’ve been Summer,” Qrow said, something oddly wistful and sad about his tone. But he wouldn’t do that in front of Taiyang if it were Summer that wistfulness was meant for, surely.

Things hadn’t got quite that bad.

“Hold on just a moment, Qrow. You said something about a leader,” James said. “Could you repeat that?”

“I said what I said. She’s gone back to the tribe.”

“The tribe?”

“Where we were from,” Qrow said, and then it started to piece together.

When Qrow explained it, James had more to paint a picture: a tribe, sure, that she felt the need to lead, even though Qrow’s childhood sounded lonely. Familial longing and debt had its weight. But then the little girl, Yang.

Something didn’t add up with the Raven he knew, and the bird he saw on the tree.

“Aren’t you mad?” Qrow goaded. “Where’s your honour, Jimmy?”

“You’re still here,” James said, and he didn’t add: _Because I know you. _

James had known they were lying. James had not cared.

James did care now. “I’m going to find her,” he said.

“You’re gonna look for my sister?”

“Yes,” James said.

“Sounds like a terrible idea.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“You sound like her, y’know,” Qrow said.

Taiyang came back with he wooden spatula and gestured at James. “Raven is gone. She’s headstrong and brilliant, but she’s gone. You tell me anytime she’s ever listened to anybody else. Ever.”

“Summer,” James wryly said.

“Why you?”

“Because I won’t leave anybody behind,” he said.

“Don’t know why you got a chip on your shoulder about that,” Qrow said from the couch. James stood up to full height, and made sure neither Yang had toddled off somewhere else so as to not hear him. He avoided the urge to pick up the bottles Qrow had hidden and thrown them out the window.

“Because the day I lost my team, I tried to give myself for them,” James said, “I failed. I lost my team. I lost myself, until I met Ozpin. Until I met you all. I see the good that we can do when we work together. Do you know who was behind the attack? On my team?”

Qrow was silent.

Taiyang said, “Salem.”

“Yes,” James said quietly, “It was Salem. It’s why Ozpin... selected me.”

“Why did Salem—?”

James interrupted him and said, “Because the Winter maiden was on my team, and she died.”

Qrow sat up in his chair too fast and came up dizzy. James wanted to take his bottles and throw them out the window.

“I watched her die,” he said. “I don’t know where her power passed to. I don’t think she even fully understood it herself. But Ozpin did. And I trusted him.”

He sighed.

“I know Raven... never put her trust in Ozpin,” he said, “but I have to try.”

James came to the realisation it wasn’t about Qrow anymore, even if he loved him to his bones and his rebuilt bones and his new blood. No. Now it was about _all _the magic that bound them.

So James left and he tried not to look back.

*

“So where am I supposed to sleep, then?” Qrow asked. James knew it was indecent to tell him his room, but considering their recent crash-land arrival into Mantle and James’ life, it was a near thing.

“I have a guest room,” James said.

“Thanks,” Qrow said. They both knew that Qrow was going to tear the blankets off the bed and sleep on the floor, but it didn’t matter. It was better he already knew. It was like carrying a secret of the world.

Ask anyone else and they wouldn’t know. James did. Qrow liked his coffee sweet. He pretended to dislike chocolate just to throw his twin off the scent of his stealing her stash. When he smiled it was like being young again.

James was leading Qrow to his quarters when, out of nowhere, Qrow blurted, “I’m sober. Trying, anyway.”

James didn’t stop and he kept walking, but he did reach out a hand to Qrow’s back.

“There’s services on Atlas if you need them,” James said. “My home is open to you.”

“Yeah,” Qrow said, rough.

“What made you...”

“Quit? The girls have a way,” Qrow said. “It felt like being asleep. All the time. Never had to think too hard.”

James opened the door they finally came to and let him through.

“Now I have to think,” he continued mysteriously, “All the time.”

Then he turned a wry expression to James, and James just thought about his shoulders. He mindlessly fingered the ring on his finger, and figured he should do something about that before he, as Taiyang would have put it, chickened out.

*

James saw the sign that said BANDITS, and he immediately felt bad for Raven. It was a poor sign.

He knew about her and Qrow’s origins, and he knew about Qrow’s alignment shift. But he didn’t fully believe Raven returned to her tribe out of altruism. There was something deeper.

There was magic abound.

So when he made to the camp, and it was no question of hiding, really, not with the directions, and not with the men he had to beat up.

“Let me in,” he said to the guard at the door.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Major Ironwood,” he said, “but you can tell Raven it’s just James.”

“All right, Just James,” the man said, thinking himself a comedian, clearly. “Just let me check you for weapons.”

James flipped him on his side before he could try.

“I apologise,” he said, dusting his hands off. “I want no fight. I just wish to see Raven.”

“She’s our leader! You can’t just march in!”

James sighed. “I think she would appreciate it very much if I just did.”

So he marched in, and he walked past the faces gawking at him. It was a well-organised encampment, and he could see precisely where the leader’s tent was. It had good strategic positioning. But James didn’t much care for that.

The tent opened up and out stepped his old friend.

“James,” she said, and she did not let herself show surprise, but he knew her and he could see it.

“Raven,” he said.

A beat. She said, “I’m waiting for you to explain why, exactly, you came here.”

He considered. “I spent some time in Atlas. I return here, and the team is splintered, and there’s apparently a baby. Two, now.”

She in turn grimaced. “So I suppose Tai moved on. Come in my tent. I won’t speak of this publically. All of you, go back to what you were doing before this interruption.”

James followed her in, and he sat down on a pillow.

“I won’t explain to you why I left,” she said.

“I already know.”

“Do you, now.”

He said, “You were scared.”

“No. I was strong.” She sipped her tea. “Do you know the truth about Salem?”

“That she’s an ancient evil? At odds with Ozpin?”

She laughed, and it sounded mean, but it also sounded familiar. James had missed Vale.

“Much more than that,” she said, “much, much, much more than that.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The magic,” she said. “Our magic. The magic that binds you to Qrow? The magic that is bound to me, and now to my daughter?”

“Your daughter?”

“Yang,” she said, and he heard the sorrow in her tone. “She’s bound to my curse.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“It’s a vulnerability. To Salem. Salem is connected to our magic in the way that Ozpin is. This magic is from another world before our own.”

James trusted her, if only because of his semblance. Even if this woman before him was not the one he knew once.

“I’m only telling you,” she said, “Because of what you did for my brother. Because of what you’ve done for me. Because in you, I see honesty few strive for.” She sighed.

He waited patiently.

“The fact you came here is evidence enough to me that you see differently,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I know. I know that Salem and Ozpin come from a time before this world’s. I know that Salem and Ozpin are eternally bound... and they are bound by a magic like our own.”

James watched her and sipped his tea. It was herbal.

“How can Ozpin defeat himself? How can Ozpin defeat his own very corrupted soul?”

There was something more coming.

“With no chance at all,” she said, and then, there, as she said it, James knew he needed to leave, but he understood why Raven left.

“Where did you see this?”

“In a vision,” she said. “We don’t only have the power to transform. When I fly, sometimes I see glimpses... I know that one day my daughter will die, and I’ll be the only person able to prevent it. I know that one day my daughter will save me.”

She set her tea down resolutely. “I saw Ozpin. I saw Salem.”

James wanted to ask a question, but then Raven kept going and going. “I saw Qrow die.”

“You saw him die,” he repeated, and set his own tea down with a crash. He felt bad about it, so he picked it up and readjusted it.

“I’ll tell you when the day comes,” she said. That was all he could ask her.

“Does Qrow... see?”

“He doesn’t have the same control,” she said, “But sometimes I think he has. He remembers in dreams. I see them in the middle of the day, wide awake. So.”

“You think Salem can’t be defeated.”

“I don’t trust Ozpin to end her,” she said. Then quietly she said, “He loves her.”

Wasn’t that a curse.

“Then what,” he said, slamming his fist on the table, and immediately feeling poorly for it, “Are we supposed to do?”

“Nothing,” she said, but he knew she was wrong, somehow.

*

James fingered the ring on his finger and contemplated the situation. Ozpin: reincarnated. Ruby: lying. Qrow: alive, after everything.

“Your new team’s put together,” Qrow said, after their first mission out.

“They’re the Ace Ops, after all. I trust them,” James replied.

“Yeah, well. One of them gives me the heebies and the jeebies.”

“Whom is that?”

“Clover,” Qrow said.

At that, James slowly turned to face Qrow, who was playing with Harbinger’s gears. James considered whether it was appropriate to have such a discussion in a public rec room, but he liked all too much being casually near to Qrow.

“You don’t like him,” James said, and then he could read Qrow like an open book. “You think he’s better than you.”

“I don’t think that—”

“Qrow,” James said, “I know you.”

Qrow seemed like he wanted to refute James, but James was sick of pretending he didn’t know him anymore. He just wanted to take him in his arms every morning.

“You’ve been alone too long,” James said.

If he weren’t straining his hearing, he wouldn’t have heard Qrow mutter, “It’s where I belong.”

*

James returned to say goodbye. He had the dignity for that.

“Qrow?”

Qrow looked up.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. There were too many things to say, and he only had the wrong time. But the matter of Raven being gone, and Qrow’s transformations was too pressing.

So he followed James outside, where the cicadas were buzzing heavy with summer. It had come alive overnight, stretching out and out until it seemed like the sun stopped setting forever. James wanted to remember the sweet warmth soothing his aches.

“If Raven’s gone,” James said, “What will you do about your—”

“My curse?” Qrow cut in. “It’s all right. You can say it.”

James didn’t believe it a curse. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Qrow.”

“It’s just the truth,” Qrow muttered, and he believed it.

“Forgive me for asking. But will you be careful?”

“Careful?” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t, Jimmy.”

Would James let himself keep lying? It was a lie he kept protecting Qrow. Maybe it would change. Maybe somebody else would love Qrow enough to do what James could.

He hoped it was never needed again. But if it was, then he’d tell Qrow. Let that be the line in the sand.

But who would come when Qrow needed it? If he was out in the field, how could James even come to him and bring him home?

Raven was gone.

“Just promise me,” James said.

“I’m not promising you anything,” Qrow snapped, and then went inside. James felt mysteriously cold.

So he came back inside and said his goodbyes.

“For the time being, I’m going to focus on Atlas Academy,” he said, and painfully, tried not to look at Qrow. Qrow was beautiful. Qrow was haggard.

“Goin’ back to Atlas, I see,” Qrow said.

“I said that.”

“Will you visit? Taiyang asked.

“I’ll try.” James watched Yang jump on the couch beside Qrow. If only to see her grow up, he thought.

“If I hear of anything about Salem, I’ll return,” he said, and he hovered near the doorway a little longer, waiting and wondering if in another lifetime, Qrow would follow. James would. James would follow him everywhere. But that wasn’t his duty now.

He was already bound. If anything Raven said was to go by, it was as much his weakness as it was Qrow’s.

So be it.

So he would endure. He would protect the world as he could, even if Raven couldn’t see the fight anymore. He would protect the people. He would protect Atlas. He would use everything he could for them all to see another day. Splintered, and fractured, and broken, and he would try, even if Salem’s skirmish split him in half.

If only because, in his soul, Qrow’s humanity was bound to his. He would fight for it.

If he had turned he might’ve seen Qrow waiting at the door for him.

*

James was in his study, signing off on forms Winter had so helpfully left him with. It was a nondescript day. He thought of Qrow less.

But the portal that apparated in his room he did not expect.

“James,” Raven said, and she was gasping. He jumped out of his chair to go to her. “My brother. Please. Come with me to my brother.”

He picked his gun up and said, “Where?” and, thoughtlessly, but always thinking of Qrow, he went through with her, passing through the fractures and splinters of the world that she inhabited.

“I saw it,” she intoned, “I saw it. This day. I’m out of aura. I used the last of it now to bring you to him.” She collapsed against a tree, even if she looked like she could keep fighting for longer. “It was you. I saw it. Flying.”

“Of course I remember,” he said, and he did not think of the fact that her semblance, too, had bound her to him, but such was the way of things now. It seemed that they were all bound.

“Is this the day? That you saw?”

She huffed. “One of them.”

Wasn’t that his luck.

He didn’t need to ask Raven where Qrow was. The sound of those gunshots was familiar enough to him, his ears acutely attuned to the rhythm, the bounce, Qrow’s flight. So James took off, and forgot about his paperwork.

Raven had seen it.

James would follow through it, and find Qrow again, searching and searching and searching for him, knowing somehow in his gut this was where he was always going to go. No matter how much he denied it.

How much Ozpin must have hated it, he thought, relentlessly reincarnated, coming back each life to see Salem. How much he must have wished to love it.

He ran and slid and uppercut the Grimm and then he shot at the masked figure, the bullet eating through the air picture-perfect and piercing their aura with precision.

“James?” Qrow shouted in question, but he kept zig-zagging around the horde of Grimm. The Grimm were one thing, but whoever was fighting with the Grimm and against Qrow was James’ problem.

Qrow intuitively sensed what James was gunning for, so they swapped off: James alternately shooting at the figure, Qrow battling them off when they came near, drawing Grimm off James’ back, and vice versa. It was practised. It was like they were young all over again, and in James’ heart, he thought about leaving Atlas and staying here. It happened every time he was around Qrow, no mattered how much he tried to harden his heart.

The human opponent was lithe, and they nearly had Qrow. James watched it in slow-motion, one minute with the Grimm under control, the next, James could see Qrow’s aura break. It dappled red. It was the colour of his eyes. James moved like a tank, and before the blade could strike, he grabbed it with his fist.

He hissed, “Don’t even try,” and then drew his gun, broke their aura with one shot, and then snapped their arm with it down.

They screamed and then they ran. James raised his gun to shoot, and then he found he couldn’t do it.

“Qrow?” he said, and he dropped to his knees, and cradled Qrow’s head in his lap. “Qrow, tell me, what’s your status?”

“All the better to see you,” he said, and coughed up blood. “Tell me, how’d you get here?”

“It’s a long story,” he said. It started with a castle, a young knight, and a maiden.

*

The Ace Ops and team RWBY and JNR came into report.

There was a missing team member. James counted them all once and then twice, and then he took in the quietly determined and furious expression on Ruby’s face and the quiet devastation on Yang’s.

James flatly demanded, “Where’s Qrow?”

“We were out in the tundra,” Ruby started. “And then one of—” she stopped and flicked her gaze to Clover. “Two of Salem’s had come for us. For Qrow. So he...”

“He drew them out,” Yang finished for her.

“Yeah, and he was cagey about teamwork,” Clover said. “Seemed like he just wanted an excuse to go.”

A shadow passed over Ruby. James saw his own mirrored.

James knew keenly what it meant to lose a team, but nobody more than Qrow. Nobody more than Qrow blamed themselves for the failure.

James had coped with more failure than he’d have ever liked. He had wondered if it was too late to redeem himself: if revealing Salem to everybody would be the right path to make up for all he’d had to do for the sake of her threat. Was it worth it? Was that world worth fighting for, if there was nothing _to _fight for in the end? If Salem couldn't be destroyed like Raven said, then what would he do?

“Sir?” Clover tried.

“We’ll find him,” James said. “He’ll come back.”

“How do you know that?” Yang said.

When he turned to her, and saw in her Raven: bright and fiercefully devoted, and yet still stronger for her loss. Team RWBY had what they never did, moving on and reuniting, the loss of JNR’s fourth letter plain and clear but the fracture only healing over.

Once Raven had told him that she had seen Qrow dying alone, in the snow. Her daughter, too.

So James asked her, “Yang, have you ever been miraculously saved?”

“What?” she said. She crossed her arms, but she looked caught. Blake carefully watched her reaction, and reached out a hand to place on her shoulder.

“When you thought all odds were lost?”

Then, slowly, Yang said, “Yes.”

He had known it had happened. So Raven had known and followed through.

“Do you know where Qrow went?”

“Way out,” Clover answered for her. “He must be lost by now. If he comes back it’s just purely by luck, if you ask me.”

“I think it’s more than luck,” James said. He smiled, then he looked at Yang. He raised his brow.

“Luck?” Ruby repeated. “But Qrow’s—”

“Not his semblance,” Yang said. “There’s something you’re not telling us. And I think I know what it’s about.”

James sighed. “Your mother never thought anybody would believe her. I hardly believed her, but...” Such was the state of his semblance.

“My mother.”

James just smiled and said, “She told me things about Salem that I—that she can’t be destroyed. That she’d seen the deaths of her loved ones.”

Yang slid her gaze to Ruby, and Ruby started backing up out of the room.

“He’ll come back,” James said. “I just have to trust Raven.”

“I wouldn’t,” Yang said. “She’s scared. I know.”

“You spoke to her?”

Yang nodded, torn between mournful and angry.

“I hope you told her off,” James said, and at that, something seemed to shift in her expression. “She’s only ever listened to Summer.”

Ruby stopped at the door and looked intrigued.

“I did,” Yang said. “I don’t know where she went after that, since Vernal... died.”

James mentally calculated: Yang, Qrow, Vernal, whom she was presumably bonded to, dead, and himself. Summer, dead too. The only person left that she could have gone to was—

“Taiyang,” James said.

“Dad?”

“Forgive me, but you seem awfully invested in this,” Clover said. James stared at him hard.

“He’s one of my oldest friends,” James said, and there was too much sentiment contained in that once sentence. He was more than a friend and less than a friend. James was impossibly soft for him. He simply needed to crash-land in Mantle and come in chains to his front door to remind him how foolish he had been for so long.

James needed to wait for Raven, as a gate for her to bring Qrow back safely. She’d be counting on him to keep his level-head.

He had one job to do, if his gut was anything to go by.

“My oldest friend,” he repeated, but it was more like being in love.

*

“Last I saw, the students had all headed to the school,” James said.

Qrow seemed to know already he had offered them leave, by that longing and understanding expression, his brow downcast but his mouth soft.

“They stayed anyway,” Qrow said.

“They did,” James said. They shared a secret glance with each other.

They had come near Beacon again, in a state James had never seen it. The sky was overtaken by the dull darkness emblematic of the Grimm. It was the strangeness of an upturned context, where students should be roaming the grounds in sunshine.

James should have known the tide would be turning. Perhaps Raven had been right all along. Perhaps Qrow had been, too, for what he had seen.

“This is what you meant,” James said. “What you saw in the field.”

“Any other day I’d say I told you so,” Qrow said.

The world as they knew it was falling apart around them. They were two old men caught between an immortal, strident battle.

“I’m glad you’re at my side,” James said. He had hardened his heart and tried to pretend it didn’t beat soundly in his chest for so long, he was starting to lose the battle. So he’d admit it: he might be a military strategist, he was no such thing when it came to Qrow.

Yes, all Qrow had to do was save him from a Grimm, turn his head back sweetly, and see right through him to his core. James had felt the years stripped away. It had always been Qrow.

Qrow seemed determined about something, but James wasn’t sure what. He felt self-conscious about his immodesty, but any attempts to cover it up were vain. Qrow had eyed him up and looked vaguely ashamed. James wasn’t sure about what.

Qrow sheathed Harbinger on his back and started fiddling with one of his rings. The largest on his ring finger was slipped off—it was the red signet. Qrow took James’ right hand carefully, James still as shocked by the intimate feeling of Qrow touching him as he would be on his left.

“Next time we see each other,” Qrow explained, “You give this back to me.”

James looked at the ring. “Qrow?”

“Sucked being out there, all alone,” Qrow said. “No reason—no knowing when I’d be back. You gotta give it back, though. That’s the point.”

“A favour,” James said.

“Something like that.”

He didn't know what he found, but he kept searching Qrow for some suggestion of what it meant. Maybe it just meant: come back. That would be enough.

Then that shadow over the school was washed out anew with silver light rushing through the sky. James had watched it cleanse Qrow’s face, the only thing standing out through the light refracting upon itself his red, red eyes.

“That’s your niece,” James said, when he could see properly again.

“The power,” he said, and he gasped, and took off sprinting.

James kept up with him, and said between breaths, “She’s never—?”

“Not that I know of,” he said. “That looked like a nuke, too. No control—”

“General Ironwood!” Weiss shrieked as they neared the tower, “Ruby’s UP THERE! GET HER!” She had started crying, and James would have been worried if he couldn’t see the anger in her eyes. “Pyrrha! She went up for PYRRHA!”

“Do you trust us to retrieve your teammate?”

“Sir,” she said, “I don’t say this lightly: get. Ruby. Down.”

“Qrow,” he said, “I’ll look after the students.”

“On it.”

James turned to Weiss. “He’ll be back with Ruby, and we need to evacuate everybody.”

She glared. “I’m not going.”

“I didn’t say that, Ms. Schnee,” he said, “I’m asking for your help to find anybody else.”

“There’s no one else,” she said. “It was just me and Ruby. Pyrrha was missing, so... we went. Jaune said she had to fight someone else, because they thought Ozpin was dead.”

James digested this information. Ozpin dead. So it had happened.

“We did what we could,” Weiss said quietly. “We tried. Ruby always has a plan. I don’t—what happened up there?”

“Ruby will be safe,” he said.

“How do you know?”

James sighed. “It’s not my place to tell, but you’ll find out eventually, when Ruby does. I need you to trust me right now and get on a ship out of here.”

Weiss glared at him. “I’m waiting. For Ruby.”

He figured he couldn’t argue with that, so the two of them stood at the bottom of Beacon Tower, where the headmaster had fallen, and so, too, had Salem’s maiden. Qrow returned with Ruby in his arms, passed out, and he was thankful for her safety, and Qrow’s return.

Something settled in his chest. The gears all seemed to slot into place. That longing had not gone. James was a man of his word.

“There,” James said, “Just as I said.”

“Yes, General,” Weiss said. “Send my regards to Winter. Please. I miss her very much. I’ll be on my way, then.”

“Yeah, I’m taking this one home to her dad,” Qrow said. “You, Ice Princess, toddle on home. Go on.”

“Qrow,” James said. “Stop making fun of her, at a time like this, no less."

“I’m calling her royalty!”

“Had you not brought me my team leader,” Weiss said, hands on her hips with her rapier away, “I would have your head.”

*

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Weiss said.

“I’m waiting,” James said.

“If Qrow’s out there with Salem’s _minions, _then we should be after him,” she insisted. She traded a glance with Winter.

James had to curb his protective instinct. There was a reason to wait.

Raven needed to learn to come back.

So he said, “You know how Raven’s semblance works, Yang?”

“I do too,” Weiss said, as Yang responded positive.

“Then you know she needs to be bonded to somebody to teleport. She doesn’t know where you are. She knows where I am. And what... Qrow will need,” James said. So let them have it. They needed to see all he wanted was the truth in the face of all else.

"You're waiting for her to come back," Blake said suddenly.

"I am."

"How do you know she will?"

Something writ on Blake's face was determined and prepared.

He said, "Because I trust her."

Her gaze was hard but something had softened.

“Tell us all of it,” Yang said, and Weiss beside her was as determined as anything. So James did. What else was left to hide anymore?

“That’s why she was so—weird,” Yang said, “About the transformation.”

“I don’t know why she didn’t just say it,” Weiss said.

Then came what he was fearing.

“True love’s kiss?” Yang repeated. “Really?”

“It’s magic,” James said. He had a vision of Jenga blocks and the end of the world as he knew it. It was magic, free and binding at the same time, and in some ways it had never been about the magic. It had just been James turning his head back again and again and trying to catch Qrow’s gaze, and what else was there to fight for but that.

“Can’t my—Raven just, I don’t know—” Yang tried. “Just—do that—when she finds him? Can’t she just teleport to me? We could go look for him now.”

James wished that he had a large imposing office like Ozpin, or an enormous intimidating chair. He felt wildly out of place and cornered.

So he’d kept one secret all along. The state of him: beard grown out, city in desolation, Salem on the horizon, and still wondering where Qrow was and if he’d ever stop loving him. His virtue was in tatters.

But he and Qrow had endured. Qrow had never given up. So James wouldn’t yet, either. Maybe the idealism would kill them.

Maybe it would bring Qrow home. James had spent time trying to chase Raven down, to challenge Qrow out of his misery. Maybe James just had to trust.

“It’s... more complicated than that,” James said.

Yang squinted. “You’re lying.”

He was. James was about to explain it when he turned away from the window and saw the reflection of a red smear in the air itself opening up. James had bid his time. James had watched the Fall of Beacon and had waited through two team splits, Qrow’s transformation, and Ozpin’s death.

It always came back to this, waiting for somebody to come home. So James had started letting himself trust.

“This is getting old,” Raven said, dragging Qrow through with Taiyang. She looked a little older than when he’d last seen her. Taiyang had a belly, but he had muscle too.

Qrow was an enormous, black-feathered angel.

“Qrow?” Yang gasped. “_Mom_? _Dad_?”

“I heard commotion!” Ruby announced at the door, speeding through. “DAD?”

Her squeak nearly split James’ eardrums, but he came running to Qrow’s side to carry him through, one office after another, one time after another. This was all he’d been waiting his life for.

“Hey, girls,” Taiyang said. “Sorry about the entrance.”

“You’re still wearing your cargo shorts,” Yang said blankly, but the greetings were white noise for James, steadily manoeuvring Qrow from Taiyang and Raven’s hold, the snow on his feathers a smattering of light and beauty. James could hardly believe his eyes.

“You self-sacrificing fiend,” James said, with too much fondness. He was sure they all knew then, if they had heard it.

“Do you have to—kiss him?” Yang asked awkwardly, to Raven.

“No,” Raven said, and she squinted at James. He felt seen. “I’m not doing your job. For the last time.”

Taiyang traded a suspicious look with Raven. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” Raven said.

“It was me,” James said gently.

“Wait,” Yang said.

“I think you girls should—maybe—go make sure the rest of the team’s all right,” Taiyang said, gently shuffling the team members out. “Nothing more important than that.”

Then Qrow heaved, “You came back,” but it came out faintly.

“I did,” Raven said.

“Thought—we disowned each other.”

“I don't have a choice.” Then she stood from crouching and turned to James. “Don’t mess it up this time.”

But it sounded like much more than that. It sounded a lot like, _don’t let me mess it up this time. _

So James crouched, and carded his fingers through the strangely familiar black mess, as if it had been yesterday the last time Qrow had transformed so. It had brought them together then. It had done that now, even if they couldn’t all be there. Summer was scattered on the wind, but the junior teams had endured as much.

They had got old and bad at their game. James cupped Qrow’s jaw. It seemed inevitable. He reached forward but stopped as Qrow’s eyes slipped open and his sweet gaze touched him in his chest.

“James?”

“It’s me,” he said, and it meant a lot more than that. Then he moved forward.

Qrow was singularly focussed on him.

“May I?” he asked, soft, nobody else in the room, not with those giant wings curling around them now like a cocoon.

Qrow nodded. James kissed him chastely. Instead of his sweat-slicked forehead, it was his lips: James had always been zeroed in on them, in a covert, constant kind of way, that it just seemed like something he’d been doing his whole life. Like they never lost all the years between them together, and team STRQ was assembled, and would James like to come out for a walk? Qrow didn’t want to go by himself.

Of course James would go with him.

The truth had been there all along.

As his true form came back, and the blanket around them receded, black feathers fluttering in the air, James decided he was done with this final lie.

“It was you,” Qrow said, disbelieving, his slumped figured caught in James’ arms.

“It was.”

“All this time, you let me believe...” Qrow tried, and he wheezed out a long sigh.

“Because I thought you didn’t—”

“Thought I didn’t what?”

“You _rejected_ me—”

“Wait,” he said. “What?”

Taiyang covered his face and then he heard Raven let out a long bark of laughter. James realised he had probably messed up.

“The day we walked around the docks. The sunset?”

“No, no, you didn’t really think—I thought you were trying to let _me _down by joking about it.”

“I’m sorry,” James said, feeling a silent fury at himself, “You thought that my feelings for you would be a humourous topic?”

“I thought mine were.”

“Never,” James said. “They’re precious to me.”

“I’m the one with a curse,” Qrow said. James realised he was still in his arms.

“What curse?” James said.

“Pick.”

“You mean the part where I kiss you,” James said simply, “Or every random event you attribute to your semblance?”

“That’s not the case and you know it,” Qrow said.

“Qrow.” James cleared his throat and glanced up at their companions who had started looking constipated at all the emotions. He figured they’d step outside to consort with their children.

James had a decade and then some to make up for.

“Qrow,” he said again. “The only thing you have ever done for me is make me want to go home.”

“Don’t,” Qrow said.

“I can’t lie now. I told you. I missed you.”

“It’s much worse on my end,” he said miserably, and he drew a hand up to brush over James’ cheek and his rough beard. What a mess. James could hardly believe what came next.

“It was you all along,” Qrow finished.

James figured that was good enough. So he gave himself over, without losing anything of himself, and kissed the man he loved. Sometimes that was the most honourable thing to do.

They had both been alone for too long.

“You think Raven will stick around? Tai?”

James considered him.

“Things are changing,” he said. “I think you deserve a team, Qrow.”

“I think I’d just like to stay here awhile,” Qrow said.

James could see no fault with that. As his hand grasped for Qrow’s, he realised what was missing from his dashing new outfit.

“I have something to return,” James said, slipping off the ring on his own finger, tracking Qrow’s shaking hand. He had always been a fearless sort. But Qrow undid James, too.

“Now it seems it was you who returned to me, instead,” James explained. His task was complete, he could get on with the rest of his work. The day was long, but it was worth loving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, please let me know what you thought! It gives me incentive to write! And I get emotional! I have a lot of ideas to write for this ship, so stay tuned.
> 
> Most of all, I hope you enjoyed it. Forgive the shameless self-indulgence.


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